LITMIR.BIZ

       HUNGER

      I live in a three-bedroom house with my mom and dad and little sister Michelle. We have the corner bedroom because my mom can’t sleep. Down the hall, the biggest bedroom goes to my uncle and aunt because they have three sons. The smallest room goes to my aunt Kim because it’s only her and Sophia and Marcel who don’t have a dad.

      The house is big and old. There are lots of hidden closets and corners and secrets inside. Like how we’re not allowed to bring up Uncle Duc because he’s in jail in Vietnam. Or how we have to step over my dad when we go to the bathroom at night, but come morning we have to pretend he was never sleeping in the hallway. Or how we’re not supposed to hear Uncle Lam’s fists on Aunt Trang’s body. So when it’s the Fourth of July, and all our parents leave so they can work over-time, and they close all the curtains because they say it’ll keep the house cooler, I wonder if it’s to keep us a secret too.

      It is dark inside the house because everything is wood and the windows are covered. It is loud because the boys are banging on the pots. It is hot because it’s the holiday that has to be warm enough for families to sit and watch fireworks in the night. I sit with a radio in the shadows of the living room floor. My name is Elle. It’s not my real name. That’s kind of a secret too.

      No one at school knows it’s my fake name. My parents changed it so I would fit better. Sometimes I wonder if they’ll change my last name too. And if they do, what will become of the old me? The Vietnamese name with the two letters that match like your favorite pair of socks.

      Everyone else got famous people names like Sophia Loren and Marcel, short for Marcello Mastroianni. The three boys are named after the Rat Pack, Uncle Lam’s favorite group. When I ask my mom why I didn’t get a cool famous name, she looks around to make sure nobody else is around and whispers, “I would never do that to you. It’s like announcing you still have salt behind your ears.”

      My mom talks in riddles and poems. It’s her way of saying she doesn’t want everyone to know that we only arrived in America five months ago. It means she wouldn’t want the world to know that we had to escape here by boat. The way she talks and puts words together is different from the other adults. Maybe it’s because she studied theater when she was young. She can make you feel like you are the sun or just as quickly a speck of dirt. When she talks everyone snaps to attention. But maybe they just can’t help but look at her she is that beautiful. Everyone says she would have been a famous actress in Vietnam if we hadn’t left. I can imagine her name in lights.

      If my parents want to change my last name, I will say, please, if I’m good can I choose it this time? And then I will say, doesn’t Estrada sound nice? And then they’ll think it’s because I’m in love with Erik Estrada. But really it’s because I’d have two Es for Elle Estrada the way I used to have two Ts for Thao Tran.

      Erik Estrada is my favorite actor. I wear a shirt with him flat across my heart. I wear it every day until my mom peels it off and says, “Dirty girl, you should have been born a boy.”

      The shirt has strings that tie behind my neck. It’s yellow, my favorite color because it looks like sunshine. The iron-on says Chips and he’s sitting on a motorcycle. He cradles his helmet in his arm like a baby. His shades are off so you can see his soft brown eyes. He has big white teeth

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